sabbath!”
#5
“Well, then, candidates,” Oliver said, addressing the half dozen young men before him, “That’s settled. Let’s get on with it. Who do you say should be chosen? Don’t look to the others, now, for an answer. Just think about what I told you. And let’s hear your speech when you’re ready.”
The cluster of young Klamaths stood before him, uneasy, out in the dirt of the corral, facing him as he dangled his questions before them, dallying the words like a rope. Off to the side, out of the sun, the women waited to hear who among the men should know the answer. Farther off still, back where the pines began to thicken, the old men lounged against the tree trunks or stood in clusters, ignoring the proceedings, missing nothing.
It was bad enough for them that old Lalakes had been accused of something. But that he, a headsman, their principal la`qi, could be dismissed was beyond their figuring. What did ‘dismissed’ mean? This Oliver used words they didn’t know. Even when Oliver had explained it, they had frowned and turned away. Who dismissed? How did you dismiss the spring from a creek, or the root from a tree? Did a new headsman just jump out of the brush, some jack-rabbit, ready to lead the chase? How did you have a family without the father? Could any son know what to do with no one to mark out the way -- except some other sons, all of them blown together, like the leaves, into a dust-devil? A shape, perhaps, but flimsy as air. And, like leaves, as fleeting, as easy to strew across the land when the wind died. This Oliver, they told themselves, spoke nonsense, but the sons were listening to him, nodding their heads as if they understood and agreed.
All the old headsmen, not just Lalakes, had gone away that day. They did not even wait among the men in the trees behind the women to find out how this thing would be. What Oliver said at first that morning sounded familiar, and the old headsmen started out assenting, until they slowly understood that words between Oliver and them were things of two sides: the one side Oliver faced, the one they did. “Councils” would be used, he had said, but a new kind, to go with the new times that were upon them. And of course they had agreed.
Certainly that was how they would decide things. They always had. There had never been any other way. When everyone sat down together to counsel, the one who was la`qi would stand before the people and say how things should be, talk at them long into the night, wear them down with words that said the headman saw right. And when the talk was finished, the people would agree. They would get up together and have just one heart.
When Oliver Applegate -- Captain of the Oregon Volunteers, now 25, clerk sometimes, sometimes commissary, sometimes teacher for his agent father at their reservation -- had finished his explaining, they had realized that words were two-sided things. This new kind of ‘Council’ thing would be used to try them, the old headsmen. “To try them” was to judge, he said, whether they were innocent; whether they could continue to lead -- or whether they would be replaced. “Replaced”: someone, not yet settled on, would take over the leading. Someone who understood better than they did what this new way would be. Did they get what he was saying?
“No,” said Lalakes. And when Oliver sighed and ran his big fingers through his massy hair and gathered breath to begin his explanations again, the old headsman held up his hand to stop him, since words were two-sided things. “No,” he said again, not meaning he did not understand, but meaning no, this would not be. He understood. They all did. There was no need for Oliver to say it again.
“And what about you?” Oliver asked, turning to the young men. “You see how this would be? New councils you made up, from people you voted in, they would try the old chiefs fairly to see who knows the way of progress. Later, the councils would do all the trying here on the reservation, to say who was guilty of things that ought not to be done. Things that were not right. They would decide. Right now, they would say, these councils, which sub-chiefs could go on leading. If the majority says yes -- that means if most of the men on a council give their votes for a chief -- if the majority says yes, then that chief could go on leading. If the majority says no, this has not been a good chief, then that chief is guilty and he must lead no more. Because the people say so, through their councils. That’s democracy, and democracy has come now to this country. And you young men, who will be tomorrow’s leaders, you must bring it in. Bring it to this reservation so the Klamaths can be a tribe in step with what is coming.”
He leaned back against the corral fence and faced them. Off in the distance, beyond the meadow, the lake ran blue up to the edge of the mountain.
Lalakes was the first to come before them, and he spoke in Klamath to all his people, shifting into the style that would tell them the words he was speaking were important. “I don’t use this word ‘chief’ when I talk to you. That word comes on us from these Bostons. You know, and I know, I’m a la`qi, a ‘headsman.’ If you say I am an old headsman, where is there harm?” he asked, letting the words float free in the afternoon air. “There is none,” he continued, “for that is what I should be. I am your elder. If you say I am a bad headsman, that is different. I should stand before all of you and tell you to go on a right way, out of the path of shame. Another should stand there also before all of you and say how I say wrong. And when you all agree my way goes right, then you must know that it is true, for the people say it. Or the people must say that I am wrong, and we will all see what is to be done. That is the old way, and it is the way that we should do it. If I follow this, I am not a bad headsman. This way we have always done does not seem so different from what I am hearing, until I listen more.
“Ours is not the council Agent Oliver is saying. He is saying there shall be a group of young men. He is saying they will know better how things should be in these days for those of us who live on our old land -- but they call it now the ‘Klamath Reservation.’ Now that he shows us how to do farming, run cattle. Even though they are not so good at remembering, these young men and their new council will hear me and talk among themselves and then they will tell me if I am ‘guilty.’”
He spat out the new word.
“They will tell you that about me. And then they will tell you that about you. And then they will tell that about the next one.” He stopped and waited while the young men ceased their muttering. The people waited, too, and would not look at him. “But I will not wait for this new ‘Council’ to tell me whether I can be la`qi or no. While I am headsman, only you will do that telling, the old way. I am not this ‘guilty’ thing I am hearing of.”
He paused and looked around at them all, trying to lock eyes with them, but failing. Then he said, “Well, and now I tell you also something you did not know you would hear: I am not your headsman any longer. But it is I who tell you this, not this new council thing.” With that he strode away, through the group of young men, forcing them to open a pathway through them so that he could leave. One after another the other old headsmen did the same, walked out through the people, who looked away.
When it was over and the last one was gone, a silence hung over all of them, for no one knew how to go forward from that place. But Oliver did. He let them wait until they could wait no longer, and then he leaned against the fence rail and stretched his arms out, letting his huge hands dangle, at ease. And his big laugh boomed out among them, not rude, but sure, encouraging all of them that now the way was open and things would be all right.
Well, that was settled, he said. Let them go. Now the people could choose a new chief from among the young men, and things would be even better than they had become. Then they could figure out an Indian sheriff for the reservation, and all the sub-chiefs would be sergeants. They should trust him that this would be right. He had brought them clothes and blankets and tools from The Dalles, hadn’t he? And he had taught
